Category: Neolithic

by 5ocietyx

The Callanish Stones

The Callanish Stones are situated near the village of Callanish on the west coast of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides.

It is probable that Callanish (or Calanais) – which comprises two other stone circles in addition to the main site – was built some 5,000 years ago as a lunar calendar. The path of the moon, unlike the reliably annual tracks of the sun, only returns to the same point once every 18.6 years. Callanish plots this slow progress, building to a crescendo in the 19th year at the lunar standstill – when the path of the moon is so low that it seems to walk along the horizon before setting within the stone circle.

Callanish’s mystery to the expectant crowd is not merely in the stones, but in their setting within a sacred landscape. To the south-west of the stones is a low, undulating hill known to the local people in Gaelic as Cailleach na Mointeach – the old woman of the moors, or Sleeping Beauty as she is more affectionately known. The contours look irresistibly like a reclining woman. At the lunar standstill the moon rises from behind this hill, tip-toes across her supine body and sets four hours later behind the Clisham, another sacred hill.

This moonwalk will happen throughout the summer once a month until September, and will draw hundreds for a number of reasons. Some people come to worship the full moon, others to witness the goddess walking the earth. All come in expectation of a spiritual experience and to feel the energy of the planet.
From Canadiancontent.net

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by 5ocietyx

Bounded by a 13-foot-thick (4-meter-thick) stone wall, the Ness of Brodgar is located between two other important monuments, the Ring of Brodgar and the Standing Stones of Stenness*

*Stenness incidentally is similar to the place-name ‘Staines’ which means ‘Stones’ as discussed on the ‘Millennium Monolith‘ post

The site at the Ness of Brodgar – a narrow strip of land between the existing Stone Age sites of Maeshowe and the Ring of Brodgar – is massive: the size of five football pitches and circled by a 10ft wall. Only a small percentage of it has been investigated; it is being called a “temple complex”, and researchers seem to think that it is a passage complex – for instance, one in which bones are carried through and successively stripped (there is a firepit across one of the doors, and various entrances, plus alcoves like those in a passage grave, which are being regarded as evidence for this theory – but it’s a bit tenuous at present). Obviously, at this relatively early stage, it’s difficult for either professional archaeologists or their followers to formulate too many firm theories.